Montana Sky

him.
    When he rose, lifted his face to the cold winter sun, he knew he was the biggest man in Montana.

FIFTEEN
    I F ANYONE HAD TOLD TESS SHE WOULD SPEND A FRIGID January night in a horse stall kneeling in blood and birth fluid and enjoy every minute of it, she would have given them the name of her agent’s psychiatrist.
    But that’s exactly what she had done. For the second night running. She had seen two foals born, even had a small part in it. And it thrilled her.
    “Sure as hell gets your mind off your problems, doesn’t it?” She stood back with Adam and Lily as the newborn struggled to gain its feet for the first time.
    “You’ve got a nice touch with horses, Tess,” Adam told her.
    “I don’t know about that, but it’s keeping me sane. Everybody’s so jumpy. I came out of the chicken house yesterday and walked right into Billy. I don’t know which of us jumped higher.”
    “It’s been ten days.” Lily rubbed her hands together to warm them. “It’s starting to seem unreal. I know Will has talked to the police several times, but there’s still nothing.”
    “Look.” Adam slid an arm around her shoulders, drewher to his side as the foal began to nurse. “That’s real.”
    “And so’s the ache in my back.” Tess pushed a hand to it. It was as good an excuse as any to leave them alone. And she thought a hot bath and a few hours’ sleep would set her up for a visit to Nate’s. “I’m going in.”
    “You were a big help, Tess. I appreciate it.”
    Grinning, she picked up her hat, settled it on her head. “Christ. If my friends could see me now.” She chuckled over the idea as she walked out of the stables and into the wild cold of the morning.
    What would they say at her favorite beauty salon if she walked in like this, with God knew what under her nails, jeans and flannel smeared with afterbirth, her hair . . . well, that didn’t bear thinking of, and not a lick of makeup.
    She imagined that Mr. William, her stylist, would topple over in a dead faint on his pink carpet.
    Well, she thought, the entire experience was going to make for some fascinating cocktail conversation once she was back in LA. She visualized herself at some tony party in Beverly Hills, regaling her hostess with tales of shoveling manure, gathering eggs, castrating cows—that part she would embellish—and riding the range.
    A far cry, Tess mused, from the fancy vanity ranches some of the Hollywood set indulged in. Then she would add that there’d also been some psychopath on the loose.
    She shuddered and drew her coat closer. Put it out of your mind, she told herself. Doesn’t help to think about it.
    Then she saw Willa on the porch, just standing on the second step staring out at the hills. Frozen, Tess thought, like Midas’s daughter at his touch. Not a clue, Tess realized, what a picture she made. Willa was the only woman in Tess’s acquaintance who had no real concept of her own power as a female. For Willa it was all work, the land, the animals, the men.
    She was working at perfecting a sarcastic comment when she drew up close enough to see Willa’s face. Devastated. Her hat dangled at her back over that black waterfall of loose hair. Her back was straight as an arrow, her chin angled. She should have appeared confident, even arrogant.But her eyes were haunted and blind with what might have been guilt or grief.
    “What is it?”
    Willa blinked, the only movement she made. She didn’t turn her head, didn’t shift her feet. “The police were just here.”
    “Now?”
    “Just a little while ago.” She’d lost track of the time already, couldn’t have said how long she’d been standing there in the cold.
    “You look like you need to sit down.” Tess came up one step, then two. “Let’s go in.”
    “They found out who she was.” Willa still didn’t move, but her gaze shifted until it rested on the space at the bottom of the steps. “Her name was Traci Mannerly. She was sixteen. She lived in Dodge City with her parents and her two younger brothers. She’d run away from home, this was the second time, about six weeks ago.”
    Tess shut her eyes. She hadn’t wanted a name, she hadn’t wanted details. It was easier to get through the day without them. “Let’s go in.”
    “They told me she’d been dead at least twelve hours before we found her here. She’d been tied up, at the wrists and the ankles. There were rope burns and abrasions where she’d tried to get free.”
    “That’s